1999
World Forum on Newspaper Strategy
"The
Roads to Growth"
22-23
September, Chateau de Bellinglise, Compiegne, France
55 Presidents,
CEOs, Publishers and other senior executives meet to discuss strategies
for the future of the newspaper industry.
Summaries
of Presentations
The following
are summaries of presentations at the WAN/IFRA World Forum on
Newspaper Strategy. These summaries are posted each day. Please
check back later for the most recent updates.
For more
information -- including WAN's soon-to-be-published Forum Report
-- contact Joanna Blot, WAN, 25 rue d'Astorg, 75008 Paris France,
Tel: +33 1 47 42 85 00, Fax +33 1 47 42 49 48. E-mail: joanna@wan.asso.fr
+ Click
here for summaries of Wednesday 22 September presentations.
- - - - - - - - - - -
Presentations,
Thursday 23 September 1999
- - - - - - - - - - -
POSTED
10:43 GMT, 23 SEPTEMBER
"Territorial
Expansion and Diversification: The Experience of Grupo Correo"
Fernando Berridi, Director General, El Diario Vasco
Grupo Correo
is the number one newspaper group in Spain in terms of distribution
and audience ranking, but getting there was a long climb, said
Mr. Berridi.
"Many obstacles
had to be overcome: fragmentation, technological anachronisms,
restrictive press laws and economic problems," he said. "All this
forged a team of highly professional and technologically advanced
journalists and managers with an independent informative style
and an enterprising turn of mind, allowing them to look at year
2000 optimistically."
In his detailed
case study, Mr. Berridi focused on the group's strategic planning
from Spain's transition to democracy in the 1970s to the present
and beyond.
Newspapers
in Spain's Basque Country faced intense competition during the
transition to democracy -- seven new dailies emerged and 10 disappeared,
Mr. Berridi said. At the end of the 1970s, two titles that would
later be central to the yet-to-be-formed Grupo Correo emerged
as the top titles in the region -- El Diario Vasco and El Correo.
The business
surplus generated by the newspapers' was reinvested in technology
and an expansion plan based on geographical decentralisation.
Financial surpluses were put into an investment trust called COMECOSA,
which acquired even more newspapers.
By 1995, when
Grupo Correo was official launched, there were 10 newspapers in
the Group and it had already taken its first steps into diversification
into other media. During the second half of the decade, the Group
had become a true multimedia company with expansion into the magazine,
radio, television, distribution, telephone and cable sectors.
Two commercial
decisions were key, Mr. Berridi says: the introduction of a flat
rate, enabling the Group to contact advertising for its 10 newspapers;
and the creating of a commercial utility company to develop the
commercial, marketing and promotional capacity of the Group's
members. Expansion into Latin America is the next step in the
strategic plan.
- - - - - - - - - - -
10:30-12:00
Workshops
12:00-12:30
Plenary discussion
14:00-15:00
Growing the print product
Martine
Macquin, Group Research Director, Le Monde; Gérard
Morax, Group Communications Director, Le Monde
15:00-15:45
Media ‘Megatrends’
Speaker: Charlene
Li, Senior Analyst, Forrester Research, USA
16:00-17:15
Workshops
17:15-17:45
Plenary discussion
17:45-18:00
Chairman’s conclusions
18:00 Forum
adjourns
-
- - - - - - - - - -
For more information
-- including WAN's soon-to-be-published Forum Report -- contact
Joanna Blot, WAN, 25 rue d'Astorg, 75008 Paris France, Tel: +33
1 47 42 85 00, Fax +33 1 47 42 49 48. E-mail: joanna@wan.asso.fr
